Humble Courage
Marvin Olasky
You'll probably hear something about William Wilberforce this month,
because an important 200th anniversary is coming. On Feb. 23, 1807, the
double-decade determination of Member of Parliament Wilberforce finally
brought results when the House of Commons voted to abolish the British
slave trade. Year after year, voted down, he had not responded
bitterly, and this time the other MPs stood and gave three hurrahs as
Wilberforce bowed his head and wept at the culmination of his long
battle.
Others are cheering in 2007. Washington, D.C., has a Wilberforce
Forum, under Chuck Colson's auspices, and that organization plus the
Trinity Forum sponsored Wilberforce Weekends last month. A major film
biography of Wilberforce, Amazing Grace, is scheduled to hit theaters
across the United States on the bicentennial, Feb. 23. A documentary,
The Better Hour: William Wilberforce, A Man of Character Who Changed
The World, is scheduled for television broadcast this fall in the
United States and the United Kingdom. Members of the state legislature
in Alaska have a Clapham Fellowship, named after the British group
Wilberforce headed.
Furthermore, John Templeton is funding a national essay contest on
Wilberforce for U.S. schoolkids: It's scheduled to begin in September
2007 with awards coming in spring of 2008. I hope students will learn
about Wilberforce's theology, including his complaint about those who
"either overlook or deny the corruption and weakness of human nature.
They acknowledge there is, and always had been, a great deal of vice
and wickedness [, but they] talk of frailty and infirmity, of petty
transgressions, of occasional failings, and of accidental incidents.
[They] speak of man as a being who is naturally pure. He is inclined to
virtue."
Wilberforce contrasted that view with "the humiliating language of
true Christianity. From it we learn that man is an apostate creature.
He has fallen from his high, original state. . . . He is indisposed
toward the good, and disposed towards evil. . . . He is tainted with
sin, not slightly and superficially, but radically, and to the very
core of his being. Even though it may be humiliating to acknowledge
these things, still this is the biblical account of man."
His realistic view of man allowed him to deal with many kinds of
disappointment—including the agonizing one that many of his initially
reform-minded parliamentary colleagues gave in to political lures. As a
young man Wilberforce was one of 40 MPs called the Independents who
covenanted "not to accept a plum appointment to political office, a
government pension, or the offer of hereditary peerage." And yet as
years went by, only Wilberforce and one other stuck to that resolution.
(Sounds like the Republican Revolutionaries of 1994.)
His realism also helped when he faced sharp attacks. James Boswell,
famed now for his biography of Samuel Johnson, wrote of Wilberforce, "I
hate your little whittling sneer./ Your pert and self-sufficient leer .
. . begone, for shame,/ Thou dwarf with big resounding name."
(Wilberforce stood only five feet tall.) Other famous writers,
including Lord Byron, also wrote hit pieces. But Wilberforce did not
respond in kind. Instead of speaking of his own accomplishments, he
often said that one line of prayer summarized his only hope: "God be
merciful to me a sinner."
Wilberforce emphasized teaching about Christianity but not imposing
it, and wrote that Christians should "boldly assert the cause of Christ
in an age when so many who bear the name of Christian are ashamed of
Him. Let them be active, useful, and generous toward others. Let them
show moderation and self-denial themselves. Let them be ashamed of
idleness. When blessed with wealth, let them withdraw from the
competition of vanity and be modest, retiring from ostentation, and not
be the slaves of fashion."
He proceeded boldly but not arrogantly, knowing that he could
commend belief but not command it. He stated, "The national
difficulties we face result from the decline of religion and morality
among us. I must confess equally boldly that my own solid hopes for the
well-being of my country depend, not so much on her navies and armies .
. . as on the persuasion that she still contains many who love and obey
the Gospel of Christ. I believe that their prayers may yet prevail."
Amen.
